UK deports child refugees to war zones

New figures reveal that Britain has returned more than 2,700 young asylum seekers to war-torn countries in the Middle East over the past nine years.

The figures released by the UK immigration minister is two times higher than those originally claimed by the government last week.

“While most of the young people were sent back to Afghanistan, hundreds were returned to Iraq, Libya and Syria,” Immigration Minister James Brokenshire said this week.

The revised figures reveal that 60 teenagers have been deported to Iraq since 2014, the year that the Takfiri group of ISIL took control of large parts of the country.

The revelations come in response to questions from Labour MP Louise Haigh and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ).

Media reports say, Brokenshire was forced to issue a correction to figures released by the Home Office last fall that underestimated the scale of the deportations by 250 percent.

Back in November, the minister said that just 1,040 child refugees had been returned to the Middle East between 2007 and 2015.

Unaccompanied children who come to the UK are granted temporary leave to remain, which does not offer the same protections as refugee status, and is revoked when the minors turn 18.

“These shocking figures reveal the shameful reality behind our asylum system. Children who flee countries ravaged by war in the most appalling of circumstances are granted safe haven and build a life here in the UK but at the age of 18 can be forced onto a charter flight and back to a dangerous country they have no links to and barely any memory of,” Louise Haigh said.  

Brokenshire told the Commons last month the Home Office is negotiating with local authorities to accept more refugees under a dispersal scheme that would see asylum seekers moved from London and south east England to other parts of the UK.

The revelation comes as Prime Minister David Cameron is under attack over his migration policies. The UK has pledged to take up to 20,000 refugees over the next five years. Critics are urging the government to take more refugees. Rights activists have urged the government to play a more active role in resolving migration crisis in Europe. 

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